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Crowdsourcing / help request! I'm putting together a review article for the fossil collector community on the Devonian rocks of the American midcontinent, which I've defined as the gray area on the map below plus southwest Ontario. I'm hoping to include a section in which I highlight the midcontinent fossils of greatest renown for each of a number of taxa (list below). (I purposely leave "renown" as a somewhat squishy quality open to multiple interpretations.) I would appreciate (1) your nominations of any midcontinent Devonian fossils of great renown that I have failed to capture in the list below and (2) your assistance in filling in the blanks marked with "????" Thank you! List is below. Microbes: ???? Marine algae: ???? Sponges: Formosa Reef Limestone, SW Ontario Rockport Quarry Limestone, NE Michigan ???? Corals: Widder Formation, SW Ontario Jeffersonville Limestone, S. Indiana Petoskey Limestone, NW lower Michigan Hyolithids: Arkona Formation, SW Ontario Tentaculitids: Arkona Formation, SW Ontario Conulariids: ???? Bryozoans: ???? Brachiopods: Silica Formation, NW Ohio ???? Pelecypods: Arkona Formation, SW Ontario ???? Gastropods: Rogers City Limestone, NE Michigan ???? Non-ammonoid cephalopods: ???? Ammonoid cephalopods: Arkona Formation, SW Ontario Pelecypods: Dundee Limestone, NW Ohio Arkona Formation, SW Ontario Rostroconchs: Dundee Limestone, NW Ohio Trilobites: Silica Formation, NW Ohio Arkona Formation and Widder Formation, SW Ontario Haragan and Bois d'Arc Formations, SE Oklahoma Non-ostracode crustaceans: Chagrin Shale, NE Ohio Arkona Formation and Widder Formation, SW Ontario Silica Formation, NW Ohio Echinoderms: Arkona Formation, SW Ontario Silica Formation, NW Ohio Thunder Bay Limestone, NE Michigan Graptolites: ???? Fish: Rockport Quarry Limestone, NE Michigan Columbus Limestone, central Ohio Cleveland Shale, NE Ohio Woody plants: Ohio Shale, Ohio Herbaceous plants: Grassy Creek Shale, E Missouri

I walk the nearby rivers with my wife frequently, especially when the water is gets very low. We are located in south central Minnesota. We find many bison teeth, horns, bones, etc. We also pick up many shell fossils in matrix (lots of limestone around us). On a recent trip we found this strange old gem. It appears to me to be a sacrum that has been afflicted by some kind of bone cancer or other disease, but for the life of me I cannot identify an animal in our area that matches the shape of the central ridge. I realize it might be fused with bits of the pelvis and vertebrae, but I am just wondering if anyone has even a guess on this one. I held it up to a deer sacrum and it didn't even seem close. I have a real human pelvis and it seemed close to that than to any of the animal specimens I have. I really doubt its human, but again, I am at a loss. I appreciate your help!

There are road trips and then there are road trips. I've planned many a family vacation without a single mistake. Sometimes we hit a hitch if the plane gets rerouted due to weather or something. As much as I love Chicago, I avoid it not because strange things happen when we get too close. (I'm a little concerned about what tomorrow may bring as we pass close by.) But, it was never due to my poor planning. The last two weeks have been crazy! I had it all planned out around being in the Black Hills on Monday and Tuesday of this week. Five days out from approximately Philadelphia, five days in South Dakota, and five days home with a day to sleep off the trip before Rick went back to work. I checked the itinerary twice. I asked my hubby, Rick, to double check it. We hit the road. The first few days went as planned. If this is Saturday, this must be Ohio kind of things. We spent the night in a castle and fossil hunted at a dam spillway in Ohio. We looked for more fossils along a waterfall in Indiana. We spent the night in a wacky, artic themed hotel room in Illinois. We visited a cave in Minnesota and looked for more fossils. We camped out in Buffalo Gap National Grasslands and looked for gemstones. It was all going swimmingly. The first goof was missing lodging for a night in South Dakota. No biggie. we'll just find a place for the night, although if I had figured it out, I would have opted to sleep under the stars in the free campground at the national park for an extra day. At least we had a nice shower. It also gave us extra time to admire the geology of Spearfish Canyon, complete with a run down the natural waterslide at "Devil's Bathtub." Two days later, we got to the field station for our Hell Creek dinosaur hunt, the whole reason for the trip. We got there 15 minutes early… and waited. Eventually we realized that people should be there by now and checked the reservations. It wasn’t Monday and Tuesday, it was Tuesday and Wednesday. Oops. This means that everything for the rest of the trip is now off by a day and the lodging for this leg of the trip dries up a night earlier than we need it. We decided to camp out in the Spearfish municipal campground the last night in SD. I rested a continuing migraine and Rick sat down to Google Maps and Expedia to figure out the rest of the trip. The Hell Creek Hunt was freaking awesome and will get its own trip report, but the highlights included unearthing a big fossil log along wit a triceratops tooth, a champsasaurus tooth, a 66-million-year-old turtle toe bone, and a rather large log that will probably take years to fully excavate. The next big thing on the agenda was hunting with a fellow fossil buff I’d met on The Fossil Forum. He lives on the Iowa/ Minnesota border. Somehow, when was copying and pasting Google maps told me that I needed to go to Indiana, not Minnesota. Well, that puts a monkey wrench in things! We rerouted everything and I sent my fossil friend a message about the change in plans. Then I forgot to hit send. I wondered for two days why he did not reply. Finally he asked if I was still coming. I said yes, we’d be out his way tomorrow; that we were on our way to DesMoines, a few hours away. Well, It IS a few hours away, but we were already EAST of him and had no buffer time before Rick had to be back to work on August 1st. So, this is the one thing we just had to skip. BOO! Crossing my fingers for our next trip west, @minnbuckeye SO, now we are playing the next few days by ear as we hop from DesMoines to somewhere to Cleveland and then home. Do I dare to try Mazon Creek in the heat of summer with a million ticks? Brave my Chicago jinx? Find crazy roadside attractions and just stop as we see signs? Only tomorrow will tell. Regardless, we’re having a ball. The roof rack on our minivan is loaded with fossils and pretty rocks. We got loads of sunshine. We have stories to tell. It’s all good.

Hello, I was rummaging through a rock pile in stevens county, Minnesota today and found these. These are the first fossils I’ve ever found and admittedly were quite exciting to see. Could anyone help me identify what they are? I have a feeling the fourth and fifth photos could be a clam? Or is it possibly just how the rock broke? Thanks!